Previous research has shown that there are losses in learning and verbal memory with age. Little is known about age differences in nonverbal memory. Not all memory functions must be equally affected by age but experimental demonstration of this observation has yet to be established. The present research is concerned with two objectives. Studies under the first evaluate young, middle-aged, and old persons with 16 standardized memory tests to determine the profile of verbal and nonverbal memory performances as an aid to clinical diagnosis and to complete much-needed age norms. Influences of cardiovascular health, depression or sensory-perceptual impairments are considered as covariates in multivariate analyses. Second obective is to resolve whether there are age differences in nonverbal memory. Using auditory, tactual, and visual items that clearly defy verbal coding, the results to date indicate that old persons have more difficulties than young persons in tasks requiring recurrent recognition of visual or tactual designs but not of auditory patterns (bird calls). The age differences disappeared when test scores were adjusted for differences in non-cognitive factors.